Becoming (in)significant

I want to be someone

I haven’t always wanted this, it’s not a longing I was born with in fact when I was small all I wanted to be was me. I did what I did because I loved it not because of who I would become because I was doing it.

But as I got older and I became more aware of the cruelness of the world, and I became a product of the cruelness of this world I developed a demand that I become someone, and by someone I mean someone of significance

I want to be someone that you talk about

I want you to be envious of the life I lead

I want you to want to be me

I want a story that is compelling, I want for the whole damn world to look on me with awe and wonder. It’s ok that my life has had pain and suffering as long as that pain and suffering is redeemed by me become famous.

It never mattered what it was I became famous for, as long as I was the one that received the adoration of the world.

So I chased after various degrees of significance for most of my life. Radio, acting, music, as long as it made me the center of attention, as long as it let me feel what it feels like to be significant than I was happy.

But here’s the problem, and this is why this blog post is nothing more than a confession, I wanted this because I didn’t like who I was.

I don’t like me very much, I often wondered why I should, no one else seemed to. So if I could make myself someone that was loved by everyone then maybe I copuld learn to love myself too. If everyone else changed their opinion of me bnecause of how great I became than I figured that my own opinion would change too.

Do you see the faultiness of these arguments? I do now but I didn’t for a long time.

See I had an interesting conversation with my pastors wife last night at church. She told me that the one thing that she wanted to be was anything but a pastors wife, and that was the very identity that God had invited her into.

That resonated with me because the one thing that I wanted to be was something, or to put it another way, I wanted to be anything other than nothing.

Yet Jesus has invited me into nothingness, into insignificance.

Into the identity of this life not being about me, who I am, what I’m about but instead, who He is, what He has done.

I am no one

nothing

insignificant

without Him

If I try to tell my story without talking about how He redeemed me, how He was there when I suffered the psychological blows of being bullied than my story will not end well.

But if I tell the story and I focus it not on myself but on Jesus than it’s a story that is not only significant but it is a story that never ends.

It’s uncomfortable sometimes because I am still a sinful human living in a broken world. I’m in flux, and there is a part of my being that still wants you to applaud me

 

Perhaps that’s why I’m even bothering to write this post, I don’t know

But more and more, day by day, what I long for the most isn’t significance it’s love

it’s peace

and you’ll never experience those things while you spend your life chasing applause

So the more this world tries to convince me that it’s all about me, the more they tell me how important my self esteem is and how I’m the only one who can achieve the greatness that can be mine if only I take hold of it. The more I’ll step away from the spotlight, into the shadows, towards Jesus, who made himself nothing so that he might be glorified as the worlds rightful king.